Hello, I'm Monica Reinegel and you're listening to the Nutrition Diva podcast Welcome.

There is a heated debate going on right now about whether calories matter when it comes

to weight loss.

On the one side are those who insist that weight loss is simply a matter of taking in fewer

calories than you burn.

This is often referred to as the calories in calories out model.

Taking into its absurd conclusion this view holds that you can lose weight while eating

nothing but twinkies as long as you don't eat too many and that you could gain weight

eating nothing but salad if you eat too much of it.

In the other camp are those who ascribe to the carbohydrate insulin model of obesity,

which holds that calories from some foods, specifically sugar and grains, cause you to gain

weight more quickly than calories from protein and fat.

Taking into its absurd conclusion this view holds that you can eat as much as you want without

gaining weight as long as you avoid those bad foods.

Now this is of course an oversimplification.

The arguments for each of these positions are a lot more nuanced and sophisticated than

I've given you here and if you're interested in the subtleties these two camps have spent

the last several years engaged in an energetic public debate, which has played out on the stages

of big nutrition conferences in the pages of scientific journals and of course on Twitter.

Kevin Hall and Stefan GNA are two of the most prominent defenders of the calories in calories

out argument while Gary Taubes and David Ludwig are co-captains of team carbohydrate insulin.

And this issue has become sort of a litmus test.

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